This was the first time I have attempted to replace a smartphone battery. After having used an iPhone 3GS for several years (with two battery replacements done by someone who knew what he was doing...) I had switched to a Nexus 5 end of 2013.

It was peculiar that I had all kinds of strange crashes after having moved to Lollipop. I tried various battery saving apps, but at some point wondered whether replacing the battery would not be more sensible. So I got a LG BL-T9 2300mAh replacement battery and went ahead with a knife and a screwdriver. And I must say, it was not that difficult.

I found the descriptions at IFixIt quite useful. Even though they mention "The battery is held in place with some adhesive.", it took me quite a while to finally apply sufficient force (= not too much - it requires some patience) to get the battery out. To my surprise the battery had "swollen" a bit and felt a bit spongy - certainly when comparing to the new replacement battery. I only recall that the Nexus had gotten somewhat warmer the weeks before I had ordered a new battery, so I wonder whether my battery had become funny...

One last remark: I found descriptions where they start by placing the new battery first and then attach the daughter board connector. If you have no experience, the connector feels unknown and you wonder whether you are placing it properly. I removed the battery again and first attached the connector before placing the battery. That was much easier.

All in all, really something that can be done if you have some patience and don't apply too much force.

The journal Chest has recently published an article describing an off-label use of Bedaquiline (TMC207/R207910). Philley et al. have explored the effects of the drug in patients with nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease. They treated in total 10 patients with the same bedaquiline dosage used in TB trials.

While the authors clearly point at the small sample size of the study, they did not observe abnormal EKG findings - something which is of concern as the drug has a black-box warning for arrhythmias (=> long QT syndrome).

I hope we will be able to quickly gather more information over potential long QT risks so that we get a better view on the risk/benefit balance.